Art by Animals comes to London

The team at the Grant Museum approached UCL Media Relations and UCL Communications early on about the exhibition. They wanted publicity to target key audiences, specifically, Londoners who might visit the museum, the UCL community, the art and the natural history community.

UCL Media Relations drafted a press release, and due to the strong visual nature of the story UCL Communications also produced podcast and video, interviewing the curators, and also featuring images from the exhibition and footage from some of the animals whose work was displayed.

The press release received extensive local, national and international coverage, notably a full-page article in the Sun, BBC online internationally and websites such as New Scientist. The UCL Communications-produced YouTube video received nearly 13,000 views, and it was actively promoted on Twitter and Facebook, with the BBC and other news outlets also using the footage in their broadcasts.

Jack Ashby, Manager at the Grant Museum, said: “The result was a huge success – the exhibition was covered by nearly all of the major news outlets in the UK, in print, radio and TV, as well as many international publications and a huge uptake online.

“It was more press than our Department has ever received before, and the Museum received record numbers of visitors over the course of the exhibition, due in large part to its success in the press,” he added.